Like Father, Like Son ✔

Chapter 29 - The Underdogs

CHAPTER 29

CAT

The week following the Fourth of July weekend was absolutely chaotic.

Nick was spending his summer break doing PR for a new company in the city and apparently they had him doing the job of three people, including a website designer. While Nick was fairly decent when it came to coding and all of that techy stuff, computer science was far from his college major and, honestly, far from the job he was actually getting paid to do. He was supposed to help promote their new business and put together their social media pages, but now he was doing a dozen other things too and it was causing him a lot of stress.

Cat had her own set of issues at work to deal with, including a boss that didn't show up to work one morning and didn't answer his damn phone either.

She had half a mind to go to his place during her lunch break to make sure he hadn't overdosed or something during a wild party over the weekend, since this really wasn't his thing. He was a bit immature at times, but the record store was Curtis' baby and he would never just... not show up.

Fortunately, he did show up. Unfortunately, it was right around closing, and he was looking like he hadn't slept in days, but he assured her that he was fine and told her not to worry about it. Of course she still worried. It was just one more thing to add onto the huge pile of crap in her life right now.

It was only Wednesday now and the worst was yet to come. God, she was just so ready for the weekend. Actually, no, because her weekend was going to be just as hectic – she was looking forward to the weekend after that.

"You don't have to come with me if you don't want to," Cat said, tucking her phone between her ear and shoulder so that she could have two free hands to clean up the remnants of breakfast. She had to get to work in just over half an hour and Luke was being really cranky for some inexplicable reason.

Or maybe the reason was explicable enough: Nick hadn't slept over last night for the first time in almost two weeks.

"Do you not want me there?" Nick asked on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, of course I do, but you're working until four and it'll mean—" she began to argue, but Nick was very stubborn when he wanted to be, giving her no space for wiggle room.

"I'll be there, Cat, just like I'll be at the actual mediation session next Tuesday, and every other thing after that if it comes down to it," he said firmly.

"God, Nick, I really love you, have I told you that lately?" Cat sighed, dragging her fingers through her hair and collapsing onto a nearby dining room chair.

"Once or twice, but I don't mind hearing it again," Nick replied, and she could hear it in cocky ass tone of voice that he was probably smirking right now.

"Well, I love you," Cat laughed.

"I love you too, lady, hang in there," Nick told her reassuringly. "I'll come by the store on my lunch break and we can go out, decompress a bit before this afternoon," he added.

"Yeah, sounds good, I'll be counting down the hours," Cat smiled.

They had one last consultation with Sullivan McDonald at his firm later that afternoon, and then on the 11th, in just under a week, they were having their first mediation session to see if they could resolve their problems without going to court. Cat wasn't holding her breath – she didn't think James would be settling any time soon, and she wasn't planning on settling either. She wanted full custody of her child, and maybe she'd consider supervised visits with Luke's grandparents if they asked for it, but that was it. She wasn't bargaining her son's welfare.